UFC 196 is nearly upon us. The last stop is Friday afternoon’s weigh-ins.
Atop the card sit Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor. The featherweight champ and the lightweight contender have given fans fireworks on the microphone to this point and transform…
UFC 196 is nearly upon us. The last stop is Friday afternoon’s weigh-ins.
Atop the card sit Nate Diaz and ConorMcGregor. The featherweight champ and the lightweight contender have given fans fireworks on the microphone to this point and transformed what could have been a ho-hum replacement bout into one of the more anticipated fights in recent memory.
Both men have impressive highlight reels and are all but guaranteed to put on a classic in Las Vegas on Saturday night.
Lost in the shuffle but still appealing in its own right is the co-main event: Holly Holm vs. Miesha Tate. The women’s bantamweight title was regarded as the “Ronda Rousey belt” for a long while, but the division has been blown wide open with Holm wearing gold and Rousey‘s future left unclear.
This will be the first title defense for The Preacher’s Daughter and, possibly, the first taste of the post-Ronda era.
The prelude is almost over, with the excitement peaking from a press conference worthy of the presser Hall of Fame. In the future they’ll study Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor’s endless argument about who gives less of a f–k right alongside “I did not ha…
The prelude is almost over, with the excitement peaking from a press conference worthy of the presser Hall of Fame. In the future they’ll study Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor’s endless argument about who gives less of a f–k right alongside “I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” “Playoffs? You kidding me? Playoffs?” and all the other greats of an underappreciated art form.
And, if we’re being honest, it might just top them all. After all, neither Bill Clinton nor Jim Mora punched anyone after he said his piece, and the stage didn’t fill up with miscreants and deviants on either occasion. But these things happen in MMA.
All that remains, now that the dust is settled and the debate has been closed about whether or not a “gazelle” is an obscure animal, is the fight—ostensibly, the reason we’ve all come to this kooky party in the first place. Unfortunately, once the cage door closes, the back-and-forth may become decidedly one-sided.
Let’s begin here with some admissions. Even though he once created a whirlwind of chaos looking to do me harm at a UFC Fan Expo, I am a stalwart Nick Diaz fan. I once even called him “the greatest man to ever live,” and my tongue was nowhere near my cheek. No small portion of that admiration filters down to his little brother Nate, another delightful bad boy worthy of the highest esteem.
I’m also, of course, a huge admirer of McGregor. The traditional martial arts, once a laughingstock, have risen like a phoenix from the ashes of the original UFC. And McGregor has been at the front of that charge, using his movement, management of distance and dazzling technique to mesmerize everyone who has the pleasure of watching him fight. As a stand-up fighter, he’s showing us the future of the sport every time he steps into the cage.
This is all to admit I am biased—but toward both men. These are the kinds of athletes—the living embodiment of the warrior ethos—who I want to see in this sport.
Despite that—despite all of his many wonderful skills and warrior’s heart—I’m hard-pressed to see a path to victory for my beloved Nate Diaz.
At his best, much like his brother Nick, Diaz backs his opponent into the cage and unleashes with a never-ending torrent of punches. They come at all angles and with varying degrees of force, sometimes as many as 10 in a row. A master at working the body, Diaz throws in such volume that he often overwhelms an opponent’s processing power.
It’s death by a thousand cuts.
It’s also a game plan that will be near impossible to pull off against a fighter as sophisticated as McGregor. The featherweight champion is a master of space and time. He’ll find the right angles to be everywhere but where Diaz wants him, keeping the fight in the kind of wide-open spaces where he can roam free.
In a boxing match from the outside, Diaz can land a steady, solid jab and make fine use of his reach advantage. But that supposed reach advantage doesn’t account for McGregor’s kicks, which will come early and often.
His lead-leg side kick will stymie Diaz, much the way McGregor used it to frustrate top prospect Max Holloway during their fight in Boston. Not only will it do cumulative damage should the fight go the distance, but it will stop Diaz dead in his tracks, forcing him to reset and begin the chase anew each time.
The fight will most likely look like an odd dance, with Diaz lurching haplessly after McGregor while eating sharp counters and kicks for his trouble. His lone hope is that McGregor, who seemed to lose his composure at times during press events, chooses to stand in front of him and slug it out. But, if past is prologue, the Irishman has ice water in his veins once the bell rings.
There’s an outside chance that Diaz, a gifted jiu-jitsu wizard, will try to take McGregor to the mat. There, the larger, more skilled fighter would have a serious advantage. But something about that strategy feels wrong to Team Diaz, too much like the “punk” wrestlers they’ve spent a decade decrying.
If the two end up clinching near the cage, Diaz has a stellar harai goshi he could use to judo-toss McGregor to the mat. But he’s attempted just one takedown in his last five years of fighting. It would be entirely out of character for him to try one here on the largest stage under the brightest lights.
In the end, we are who we are in this world. Diaz is a born hunter. But, in this case, it’s all those instincts that will make him prey. This is McGregor’s cage. And we all better get used to it.
After beating Jose Aldo to lay sole claim as king of UFC’s featherweight division, Conor McGregor is setting his sights on Nate Diaz. The two will clash Saturday in Las Vegas at UFC 196.
McGregor was originally supposed to face lightweight champion Raf…
After beating Jose Aldo to lay sole claim as king of UFC’s featherweight division, ConorMcGregor is setting his sights on Nate Diaz. The two will clash Saturday in Las Vegas at UFC 196.
McGregor was originally supposed to face lightweight champion Rafael Dos Anjos; however, a broken foot ruled Dos Anjos out for the pay-per-view. Almost immediately, Diaz was named as a replacement, meaning the fight would be at the welterweight, rather than lightweight, limit.
Despite the fact he’s fighting in a completely new division, McGregor remains the favorite Saturday. According to Odds Shark, the reigning featherweight champion has 5-8 odds to win, while Diaz is a 7-5 underdog. McGregor also has 20-53 odds to win the fight by knockout, per Odds Shark.
No matter what the result, the fight should be extremely entertaining. McGregor is one of UFC’s best showmen, while Diaz made it clear he’s looking to make a statement inside the Octagon.
Here’s some of the pre-fight hype between the two fighters, followed by predictions for how the fight will unfold.
Pre-Fight Hype
Diaz wasted little time throwing his first shot McGregor‘s way:
Making the jump from featherweight to lightweight would’ve been a difficult enough transition for McGregor. He has to jump two weight divisions in order to fight Diaz, and as a result he has been forced to add a significant amount of weight for such a short amount of time.
In an interview on Submission Radio (via Anton Tabuena of SB Nation’s Bloody Elbow), Diaz‘s coach Richard Perez asserted his belief McGregor “has got to be on some kind of steroids.”
During a press conference on Feb. 24, McGregor dismissed similar accusations from Diaz himself. (Warning: Video contains language that is NSFW):
McGregor also shared some short clips of his pre-fight training regimen:
Even with the short turnaround time between the time McGregor vs. Diaz was announced and this Saturday, the hype machine hasn’t lost a single beat. McGregor is guaranteed to grab headlines himself, and the steroid allegations only added another layer of personal animosity between he and Diaz.
Tensions almost boiled over at the pre-fight press conference, per UFC:
Given the amount of bad blood on display, Saturday’s fight won’t be lacking in drama.
Prediction
Not only is McGregor fighting in a weight class 25 pounds higher than what he’s used to, he’s also had only a little over a week to prepare for his opponent. Even the greatest of fighters would struggle when facing those two obstacles.
Then, you throw in the physical and stylistic challenge Diaz poses, and this won’t be an easy fight for McGregor by any stretch.
In addition to his size advantage, Diaz owns a slightly longer reach than McGregor—two inches—per FightMetric. That should allow Diaz to remain a safe distance away yet still be close enough to land the volume of blows to sway the judges his way.
Diaz would be smart to use McGregor‘s aggressive nature to his advantage. The 30-year-old former Ultimate Fighter winner could frustrate his opponent with well-time jabs, and should that frustration get to McGregor, he could leave himself open long enough for Diaz to land a major blow.
While one can see a road to victory for Diaz, this fight is McGregor‘s to lose. He’s the stronger puncher, and his speed and agility will help him avoid Diaz‘s attempts to get the fight down on the mat.
McGregor has called for a first-round knockout.
“End of the first, I feel he will be put away,” he said, per Fox Sports’ Damon Martin. “I respect Nate. Don’t get me wrong. I do respect Nate. There’s a lot of (expletives) in this game and he is not one of them. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a respect there between us but it’s business in there and business is business.”
He predicted as much before his fight with Jose Aldo and duly delivered. A win Saturday won’t come nearly as easy.
Diaz will be behind on the scorecards in the third round, and he’ll start getting a little desperate as a result. That desperation will be his downfall as McGregor sees an opening and ends the fight in the third.
In what should come as a surprise to absolutely noone, Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz were not able to keep things civil at yesterday’s UFC 196 press conference. In the evening’s staredown, Diaz put his fist a little too close to Conor’s face for the Notorious one’s liking, and McGregor responded by punching — not slapping, punching — Diaz’s hand out of his face.
What resulted was a bench-clearing skirmish that — had we been in Nashville — would have almost certainly resulted in the featherweight champion getting curb stomped.
After the jump: A full video of the skirmish with actual sound, plus McGregor and Diaz’s profanity laced interview on Fox Sports Live that followed.
In what should come as a surprise to absolutely noone, Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz were not able to keep things civil at yesterday’s UFC 196 press conference. In the evening’s staredown, Diaz put his fist a little too close to Conor’s face for the Notorious one’s liking, and McGregor responded by punching — not slapping, punching — Diaz’s hand out of his face.
What resulted was a bench-clearing skirmish that — had we been in Nashville — would have almost certainly resulted in the featherweight champion getting curb stomped.
After the jump: A full video of the skirmish with actual sound, plus McGregor and Diaz’s profanity laced interview on Fox Sports Live that followed.
Seriously, have you seen how deep Diaz’s crew rolls? I don’t care how many pool noodles Ido Portal brings to the equation, McGregor and poor Artem were lucky that there were about a dozen armed police officers and Dana White’s bodyguard on hand.
After their scuffle, the UFC 196 headliners appeared on Fox Sports Live for a dual interview and if you think it was anything less than gold than you have clearly been in a coma for the past week or so.
Conor McGregor’s featherweight title was never meant to be on the line this weekend at UFC 196.
Even before a last-minute injury forced lightweight champion Rafael Dos Anjos off Saturday’s card and put Nate Diaz on, this fight was about a d…
ConorMcGregor’s featherweight title was never meant to be on the line this weekend at UFC 196.
Even before a last-minute injury forced lightweight champion Rafael Dos Anjos off Saturday’s card and put Nate Diaz on, this fight was about a different set of spoils.
As first conceived, it was to be the Irishman’s debut at 155 pounds and his chance to make history all rolled into one. Beating Dos Anjos would’ve made McGregor the first man ever to simultaneously hold two UFC titles in two different weight classes.
So that was going to be kind of a big deal.
Then Dos Anjosbroke his foot and, in the mad scramble to find a replacement, highfalutin ideas like history, titles and superfights all fell by the wayside.
Due to Diaz’s last-minute entrance, this fight will now be contested at welterweight. That way, nobody will have to worry about cutting too many pounds on short notice, and fans won’t have to waste time fretting over what’s at stake now without Dos Anjos’ belt involved.
After watching Diaz and McGregor show up at last week’s press conference and shout at each other over all the stuff they don’t care about, it’s tempting not to think all that deeply about what this fight means. Perhaps this is nothing more than a fun matchup between two popular attractions who each talk a good game and each possess exciting striking styles.
Clearly, both McGregor and Diaz have done their best during fight week to live up to at least those expectations (NSFW language in video):
Make no mistake, though, this fight could still have a far-reaching impact on the UFC landscape. Depending on how McGregor fares in his debut at 170 pounds, it could touch off a trickle-down effect that reaches all the way to the 145-pound division.
And, heck, 155 pounds, too.
Despite the fact McGregor has been adamant about not vacating his featherweight title, he said this week he would only return to 145 pounds if and when the proper matchup presents itself.
“Who is there, though?” McGregor said, via Fox Sports’ Damon Martin. “Let me see some of these damn bums gear up and fight and make some noise…I’m sitting pretty over here. They need to…make me stand up and say ‘OK I’ll take him.’ That’s what I need to see.”
This is probably irksome news for featherweight contenders like Frankie Edgar and Jose Aldo. For some time now, Edgar has been patiently—and, at times, impatiently—waiting for another chance to win the 145-pound crown.
Aldo, too, has been champing at the bit to get revenge on McGregor after his 13-second knockout loss at UFC 194, though he turned down the opportunity to step in for Dos Anjos on short notice.
Both Edgar and Aldo have said they’re content to wait for a title shot, but the chance that either guy eventually cashes in on the big-money McGregor sweepstakes is only getting slimmer and slimmer.
It could well be we’ve already seen the last of Big Mac at featherweight.
Even before this week, there was ample evidence to suggest McGregor is done fighting at 145 pounds if he can help it. In the wake of his victory over Aldo, company president Dana White appeared on Fox Sports 1 to say McGregor’s camp made it clear he was through making the difficult weight cut.
“[McGregor’s coach] John Kavanagh said in the Octagon he’ll never make 145 again,” White said, via MMA Junkie.com’s Mike Bohn. “He said, ‘I don’t want him making that weight again; it’s not good for him.’”
In advance of fighting Dos Anjos at 155 pounds, and now taking on Diaz at 170, McGregorhasn’t gotten any slimmer, either. He’s added enough extra bulk that his new large-and-in-charge look has been a hot topic of conversation this week:
He contends he can and will make the featherweight limit again if called upon. The question may be: Will he have to?
The deeper McGregor gets into his march through multiple UFC weight classes, the more it starts to seem like featherweight is no longer his best or most lucrative option. Assuming he beats Diaz on Saturday, the Irishman’s next fight will surely be targeted for UFC 200 in July, where he’ll have three realistic choices.
(1) He could drop back to 145 pounds and defend his title against Aldo or Edgar.
(2) He could circle back and challenge for Dos Anjos’ lightweight belt.
Or, (3) he could make himself comfortable at welterweight and take a run at Robbie Lawler’s 170-pound championship.
You don’t have to be a genius to figure out which one of those options is preferable to all who stand to profit from it. It’s Lawler all the way.
This should be no surprise. McGregor was laying the groundwork for an eventual shot at the welterweight champion as far back as March 2015. It’s just that, back then, we thought he was blowing hot air.
“I’ve got no problem going right up to welterweight,” McGregor said at the time, via MMAjunkie’s Rick Lee. “I’ve said that before. If [big fights] present themselves, I’ll take them.”
At last week’s madcap press conference with Diaz, McGregor also implied he’ll skip right over his previously scheduled bout with Dos Anjos. Coach Rafael Cordeiro says it’ll only take three weeks before the lightweight champ can begin training again, but by then McGregor may not be interested.
“It’s hard to commit to Dos Anjos again…” McGregor said. “It could take Dos Anjos two [times] to pull up the courage, but when you pull out with an injury like that—a bruise on the foot—there’s not much I can do to bring you back into the mix. It does change things a little bit.”
In other words—and as long as Lawler is game, which you know he is—it sure sounds like McGregor would go straight for the bigger prize if he gets past Diaz.
On Thursday, White gave his official blessing to the idea:
And all of this is a lengthy way of saying it figures to be a long time before we see McGregor at featherweight again, if ever. It might take losses to bothLawler and Dos Anjos before McGregor would even consider it—and that likely gets him to early 2017 without a second thought for 145-pounds.
That would be too long for the UFC to wait. It would end up having to strip McGregor of the title. The company simply couldn’t afford to have the featherweight championship on the shelf for months and months. If it plays out that way, look for Edgar and Aldo to end up fighting each other for a newly vacant 145 pound title.
It would also open the door for Dos Anjos to return with a title fight against an actual lightweight opponent—somebody like KhabibNurmagomedov or Tony Ferguson.
In fact, it’s possible McGregor sticking it out at welterweight a little longer could lead to bigger and better things for everybody.
So, in the end, maybe McGregor is right. Maybe all his foes really should be thanking him.
The prelude is almost over, with the excitement peaking from a press conference worthy of the presser Hall of Fame. In the future they’ll study 
